A Taste Of What You Paid For
by KagomeMiroku
Summary: A/U: Sev's life is over, he has nothing to live for.. He lost her, the one he ever loved, and now he was broken... When he finds that she's broken too, will he try to mend things, or does he feel its too deep in for things to be fixed?


**A/N: This is a bit different from me. But, I was listening to "The Ballad of Mona Lisa" by Panic! At The Disco, and got a huge amount of ideas by it, this being one of them. The line sort of triggered thoughts of other things, eventually leading to this... But yeah. Please R&R, I hope you enjoy!**

A Taste Of What You Paid For

Misery.

My life disintegrated to that of nothingness. Emptiness, loneliness, just getting by each day, not particularly caring if I actually did or not. I had nothing to live for, nothing to keep me sane and safe, nothing to call my own. I didn't have her, didn't hold her in my arms every night and whisper in her ear just how much I loved her. I loved her since we were nine years old, and now she belonged to someone else. Someone who she was probably married to by now, someone who she probably had millions of little arrogant brats with, children that she loved so dearly and took care of and cradled because they had his blood, his traits.

He was everything I wasn't, and that's what she wanted.

Her taste in men was always so warped, and for one so bright she never had the faintest clue of how I felt for her. She never knew what I could've given her, what we could've been. Perhaps I wasn't as charming as him, perhaps I wasn't as good looking, but I sure as hell loved her more than anyone in the entire world, both Muggle and Wizarding alike; more than anyone ever could.

My heart broke into a billion pieces every day when I thought of her, leaving the metaphorical object of love into nothing but a pile of dust. Dust collected with the wind, flying far away, but somehow recreating itself, only to break again as soon as it was prepared. Breaking, slowing and painfully, every single time.

I had no reason, no purpose. I wished I was dead.

The old, beat up Muggle car of mine started down the dimly lit streets of the bad neighbourhood. Houses were boarded up, discarded trash dressed the streets, and graffiti plagued the many faces of more than every other building. Police sirens could easily be heard from my distance from them, even with my windows rolled up, while an unearthly silence took over the rest of the town.

I leaned down in my leather seat, slouching with one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other clenched around a brown bag in the shape of a bottle, making sure the contents of the glass didn't spill as I drove. My eyes were bloodshot, from either that of the alcohol, or simply because I resulted to crying again, I wasn't sure; my breath wreaked of gin, whiskey, vodka, and whatever the hell else I was able to get my hands on, all mixed into one, strong drink, sloshing along the sides of the green, glass bottle. Shirt untucked, buttons unbottoned, I was ready for whatever awaited me that awful, long night.

Ready for almost everything, that is.

A woman stood at the corner of a street, leaning against a lamp post. Her tights were a bright, neon colour that was blurred by my vision, her skirt was tight around her firm arse, and short enough to see up it. Her shirt was hard to see from the back of her large, fur coat, and the length of her hair remained a mystery as well. All that I knew is that it was red. Red and soft looking, like that of every woman I paid for. Red, like _her_ hair.

I stopped the car right before her, and she glanced over her shoulder, a thin veil of hair covering her eye so I couldn't see into them, but thin enough so she could still see me. Rolling my window down, I leaned carelessly across the seat to open the door for her.

She didn't comply.

"I have money," I drawled, reaching into the deep pockets of the overcoat that rested on the passenger seat, pulling out a wallet. "I don't care how much you're worth... I'll pay in advance, if I must. Get in the car."

"Sev?"

No.

I blinked a few times, as though it would do me some good, then squinted to get a better look at the whore beneath the street lamp. Pushing my dark hair from my dark eyes, that instantly widened upon seeing her face, I couldn't believe it.

It made absolutely little to no sense. Standing outside my car door, on the street corner of the worst neighbourhood I ever drove through, stood the only woman I ever loved, who's beautiful green eyes seemed to water as I stared at her. She bit her lip, like she tended to do when she tried to stary strong, and let a wide smile form on her face as her large heels clicked against the pavement, and she made her way into my car, hugging me instantly.

"My saviour," she sobbed, hugging me tight around the neck.

As instinct, I hugged her back, inhaling her scent that, although diluted by the stench of cigarettes and my own vile breath breathing back at me, was still the same as it always was: strawberries.

My hug around her wasn't was tight, or as joyful as her's, and my emotion on my face didn't match that of her's. I didn't mirror her smile, I didn't mirror her tears, nor did I fully mirror her hug. Although I had Lily Evans in my arms, finally, all my mind could focus on was the aching in my chest. The burning sensation that ran down through my throat and pooled up in my chest where my heart was. Pain, agony, memories of the last few years of my broken life, of the hatred that I had for myself.

The pain, the agony.

The misery.

"Sev, it's so good to see you. You have no idea." She pulled back to look at me, closing the car door in the process, grinning up at me. She then looked down at herself, pulling at the fur of her coat, and letting out a forced laugh. "Life has been... So awful. I wanted to try and get in touch with you, but I... I was so embarrassed, and..."

I stared at her. She was as beautiful as ever. Sure, her hair was trimmed from those long, wavy locks I grew up to love, now short and just above her shoulders, stacked even shorter in the back. Her green eyes were rimmed with dark make-up, that was now running from her streaking tears. In all honesty, she looked like a wreck, and my vision wasn't all right, but she was at her best in my warped mind.

Her hand moved to pull at my collar, and she gave me a sympathetic smile, that charity smile. A smile of her's that I knew and loathed all too well. It made more memories flood towards me; when she first came to my house, when Potter and his crew first started picking on me, and every time after, then when she and I stopped being friends. Sympathetic, apologetic...

No, pitying.

She, a whore, had the gall to pity me.

I reached into my wallet, taking out a large sum of money, and dropped it on her lap. She looked from the money, then back up at me, shaking her head.

"I can't take your money, Sev,"

She tried to hand it back to me, but I just stared at her. Here was where she noticed just how quiet I've been through the entire time she was chatting. She just looked at me, then back down to the money, her brows furrowing in that adorable way that they always did.

"Sev?"

"You're not just taking the money, Lils," I slurred, my gaze never falling from those perfect green eyes that I was once so afraid to stare into, so in love with; my expression never faltering for even a moment. "You're going to work for it."

Why would I act like that? Why would I take advantage of a broken, lowly woman that I loved with all my heart? The only woman I ever loved, ever truly cared for. I had her in my car, in my arms, and I had the chance to help her get back on her feet, and had to chance to reinvent myself in the process. I had the chance to fix everything, and yet I wouldn't. Instead I stared at her, with a dark look, locking the exits of the car with one button, never even blinking in the process.

She said my name, almost scared, as she looked at me. And I almost pitied her.

I almost half-expected her to pull out her wand and hex me, but, after moments, she complied to the money's worth that she owed me, crying all the while, but earning every cent of it.

I knew that doing so wouldn't mend my heart, mend my life in any way at all. I knew, that in doing so, I would lose the one I loved most, for real and forever this time, and yet at the same time, I didn't quite care. My life wasn't worth living, and it was too late to try and mend the past, mend the present. The future was open.

And my future was empty, lonely.

Miserable.


End file.
